Ruth Kelly: Despite my respect for the hon. Gentleman, I do not recognise his characterisation of the situation at all. The one-bag rule was introduced for extremely good reasons—there was a serious, real and ongoing threat to our national security. The UK restriction was intended to limit the number of X-rays per passenger. There was a clear choice: introduce the one-bag rule or stop planes from flying altogether.
	We keep such issues constantly under review, of course. I am absolutely clear that if we can make progress, we should; I am determined to work with the industry to see what alternatives are possible. However, let me be clear to the House: before sanctioning any change, I will have to be satisfied that it would not have an adverse impact on security.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that the number of attacks on buses is quite small, but that does not stop the public from having a genuine apprehension, particularly on late-night services. Is not one solution to bring back the bus conductor, even though that would be at a cost to the bus operators?

Edward Miliband: I definitely join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the work of Leonard Cheshire all around the country as well as in her constituency. The third sector review, which has been widely welcomed, including by Leonard Cheshire, is aimed precisely to create the right environment for the third sector, in recognition of the inspiration that it provides. The Government can help the third sector by providing the right conditions, having the right funding in place and, in particular, providing stability of funding, which is crucial for organisations around the country.

Edward Miliband: In this, we are guided by the Charity Commission. If the hon. Gentleman had done his homework, he would have read the April 2007 Charity Commission document on the matter. Question 11 asks about a small charity that might for a temporary period devote all its resources to campaigning. The Charity Commission view is that that is all right, and that is my view, too. However, it goes on to say that if in the long term that becomes the sole activity of an organisation, then that is not acceptable. It is becoming increasingly clear that while we want to protect the independent voice of charities, the Opposition want to go back to the 1980s—

Phil Hope: Small community organisations are an essential part of a strong local voluntary sector—indeed, they are a key part of a strong and thriving community—and support for their work is a Government priority. The office of the third sector has created the £30 million community assets fund, which will help community groups to take on the ownership and management of assets. It is also introducing a new £80 million programme of small grants for small community and voluntary organisations and a £50 million programme of endowment grants to help local foundations provide an enduring source of funding.

Alistair Carmichael: I also thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Ron Gould is to be congratulated on the report. It is a thorough and authoritative analysis of what happened in May and he has clearly defied those who said that he would not be able to produce such an independent piece of work.
	I regret to say, however, that the Secretary of State's statement today raised almost as many questions as it answered. He is right: all parties had a role to play in this process. Only one party, however, took decisions—his party and that is a fact from which there is no hiding.
	The role of the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), requires close examination. Essentially, the Secretary of State has come to the House today to say that a wee boy done it and ran away, which really is not good enough. It has been observed that the Scotland Office does not have much to do. In fact, the organisation of elections is the only executive function that it retains. The Gould report is a detailed and damning critique of the Department's failings. Today, it seems that another Department has been added to the list of those that are not fit for purpose. It is regrettable that the Secretary of State is not prepared to acknowledge today that the logical and sensible next move would be to give the Scottish Parliament control over its own elections. The Secretary of State says that he is yet to be persuaded of that, but he does not offer any reason why the law should continue to defy logic in such a way.
	The report is about more than administrative failings in the electoral process; it is about the politics that led up to that process. The Secretary of State has already referred to Mr. Gould's comments, and expanded on Mr. Gould's reference to "partisan political interests", but the House should be aware of the whole paragraph in which that phrase is used. It speaks of Ministers who
	"were frequently focused on partisan political interests in carrying out their responsibilities, overlooking voter interests and operational realities within the electoral administration timetable. At worst, the Ministers disregarded the highly negative and disruptive influence on the elections caused by their delays in arriving at key decisions. At best, they either overlooked or were poorly advised with regard to the serious operational consequences that could and did result."
	It is clear from that paragraph that the process within the Scotland Office was removed from the normal Government process. Some personal explanation by the Secretary of State's predecessor is therefore required.
	The Secretary of State will be judged on how he responds to the report, and on whether he ensures, in the interests of the voter, that we will never again face the problems that we faced on 3 May, but the matter does not end there. The conclusion that I draw from the report is that the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South, was responsible for a crisis that brought into question the fundamental integrity of our electoral process. It is wrong that he should evade responsibility simply by virtue of taking on a new job in Government. A villain who has left the scene of his crime is still a villain. He must explain his actions to the House, and if no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming, the Prime Minister should remove him from Government.

Gavin Strang: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh Scottish parliamentary constituency had the highest number of spoiled constituency ballot papers? I thank him for his constructive response to the workmanlike report from Ron Gould. Will he confirm that not only that report but the Arbuthnott report recommended that the elections to local authorities in Scotland and to the Scottish Parliament should be held separately, so the Scottish Executive certainly needs to give that careful consideration? Finally, may I thank my right hon. Friend for pointing out that for the Scottish Parliament, we do not need electronic counting of the ballots?

Des Browne: There is a recommendation about education—and if the elections are decoupled, as we anticipate that they will be, it will be much easier to educate the electorate about an individual election in future. That is the responsibility of the devolved Administration. It will have to decide how that goes forward, and who, if anyone, it will contract with for electronic counting of ballot papers—if it agrees that that is necessary. For my part, I think that the decoupling of the elections of itself, and the recommendations of the report, make it clear that there will be no necessity for electronic counting in elections, either for this Parliament or for the Scottish Parliament.

Eleanor Laing: Some of us in this House believe that the position of Secretary of State for Scotland is an important, honourable and ancient one. Is not this debacle—this tragedy for democracy—evidence that the Prime Minister, and the previous Prime Minister, have shown little regard for the people of Scotland? Indeed, it is an insult to the people of Scotland that the position of Secretary of State for Scotland should be tagged on to the position of another Secretary of State within the Cabinet. However capable the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor, who is now Secretary of State for International Development, might personally be, it is obvious from the debacle that we see before us that one person cannot carry out both of those onerous duties. Will the right hon. Gentleman take the message to the Prime Minister that this House believes that not having a full-time Secretary of State for Scotland is an insult to the people of Scotland?

Des Browne: Let me say two things to the right hon. Gentleman, who I think was making a party political point dressed up in another way. First, the failure to get the ballot papers printed and distributed in time for postal votes was, in my interpretation of the relevant chapter of the report, also a function of the fact that the ballot paper was a combined paper produced using a centralised print scheme, and the fact that the bulk of the numbers could not be processed. It all comes back to the combination of the two papers, in my view. The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced politician and he will have a chance to read the report at his leisure and come to his own conclusions, but that is my view, on two readings of the report. We might even have a chance to ask Mr. Gould whether that interpretation is right.
	Secondly, when I looked at the comparative number of spoiled or rejected papers under STV as opposed to those in the Scottish Parliament elections, which uses the first-past-the-post system and the additional member system, I came to the same conclusion as the right hon. Gentleman did. However, more careful consideration might suggest that the system of auto-adjudication under STV may have masked the number of people who did not enter their votes properly on the STV ballot paper, because it accepted votes with a cross on them, if there was only one cross. We need to be careful about coming to conclusions from a partial interpretation of the ballot papers, as there may be hidden mistakes made by people that did not come out in the rejection system.

David Mundell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In light of the seriousness of the issues debated in today's statement, the content of the Gould report and the previous undertakings given by the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), will you confirm that it is in order for a Cabinet Member to come before the House to make a personal statement? Can you advise us whether any such request has been received?

Jo Swinson: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a national body to promote and enforce packaging reduction; to make provision for the disposal of packaging by certain retailers; to establish binding targets for the reduction of packaging; and for connected purposes.
	Packaging is part of our everyday lives. It protects the products we buy, provides information to the consumer and acts as a marketing tool to boost sales. Much packaging is essential: we would have a problem getting a pint of milk or baked beans home without it. Much of it, however, is not. Even in our environmentally-conscious times, packaging has recently been growing, not falling. We now send 5 million tonnes of packaging to landfill every year. We need to take a serious look at the packaging that fills our supermarket shelves, and ask how much of it is necessary, and how much is wasteful, needless and excessive.
	Both economically and environmentally, packaging comes at a price. Families spend about £470 a year on packaging. We see unnecessary packaging every time we visit the supermarket, in the form of shrink-wrapped cucumbers or individually packaged bananas. Often, consumers do not have the option to buy a product without the excessive packaging. Today, the Local Government Association announced that council tax payers face fines of up to £3 billion if we fail to cut the amount of waste thrown into landfill. Consumers are paying three times over for excess packaging. We pay the cost of the packaging at the checkout, we pay increased council taxes and landfill taxes, and we will all pay the environmental cost of more waste going to landfill for years to come.
	The Government have taken some, albeit limited, steps to tackle excess packaging. EU regulations on producer responsibilities and the essential requirements of packaging have been adopted into UK law. WRAP—the Waste and Resources Action Programme—has taken positive steps on research into minimising packaging. However, the waste strategy for England, published in May, was a missed opportunity. It includes a handful of measures on packaging, such as higher recycling targets, but no real ideas on how to get to the heart of the problem; it contains new targets but no fresh thinking. We should go much further.
	Supermarkets have taken some steps to cut back on packaging and reduce waste. Sainsbury's came top in a survey that I carried out this year of Easter egg packaging, for reducing to a minimum the often gross amount of packaging that usually accompanies Easter eggs. Waitrose has taken steps to pilot plastic-bag-free stores, requiring customers to bring their own reusable shopping bags.
	Across Government and industry, the movement to curb excessive and wasteful packaging has shown signs of life, but is in serious need of a growth spurt. My Bill sets out steps to be taken in five areas to cut excessive packaging and reduce waste: reform of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' Courtauld commitments; augmenting the power of trading standards officers; creating a new national body on packaging; placing responsibilities on supermarkets to tackle the problem; and encouraging the reuse of plastic bags.
	The Courtauld commitments are voluntary agreements brokered by DEFRA to reduce packaging levels. Ninety per cent. of the UK grocery sector signed up to them, and agreed to stop the growth in packaging waste by 2008 and achieve an absolute reduction in packaging waste by 2010. That sounds promising, but if we look below the surface, problems start to appear.
	In answer to parliamentary questions, I have been told both that each Courtauld signatory "declares" its total packaging use each year, and that information on the annual total packaging use of each signatory is "not routinely collected". Which is it? How are we benchmarking progress towards the targets? Another parliamentary answer tells me that a draft protocol is being consulted on with a view to it being agreed and implemented "in this reporting year". If packaging growth is to be stopped as soon as next year, however, surely the means of reporting progress should be well established by now. How will future success be measured if there is not already a clear benchmark?
	The Bill proposes that the Courtauld voluntary measures be translated into binding targets. Similar steps have been taken in other EU member states. The Courtauld targets are sensible, but we must reinforce the system so that they are given genuine priority, rather than lip service, by companies.
	We already have legislation against excessive packaging. The problem is that it is not working. In theory, trading standards officers can combat excess packaging using the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2003, which stipulate that
	"packaging volume and weight be...the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and for the consumer."
	Since the introduction of those, and their predecessor regulations nine years ago, there have been just four prosecutions for excess packaging. I have surveyed trading standards services around the country, and they are clearly finding it difficult to build a case for enforcement using the regulations. Wiltshire county council says that
	"there are numerous problems with enforcement".
	West Berkshire council says that
	"these regulations are difficult to enforce given the definition of what is excessive."
	South Ayrshire county council says
	"there is little real impact that the regulations are having on reducing the problem."
	It is far too easy for businesses to show that they are complying with the regulations. Product presentation and brand image are taken strongly into account. If producers can find any evidence that sales have dropped as a result of a packaging size reduction, they can use packaging that is larger than necessary. A packaging arms race has begun, with ever bigger branded boxes jostling for space on supermarket shelves, and the consumer is left to pick up the tab for both the packaging and its disposal.
	Even if the regulations were well worded it would make no difference, because trading standards departments are told not to bother. Last year the Rogers review described the policing of excess packaging as a "non-priority", and no mention was made of packaging in the 2005-06 statement of central Government priorities for the trading standards service. The current regulations need technical amendments to prioritise the reduction of excess packaging over the needs of marketing departments, and Government need to stop ignoring the issue and provide some leadership.
	My Bill calls for the establishment of a national body on packaging to support trading standards departments. It would work with them to tackle large-scale producers of excess packaging, and would offer a more co-ordinated and systematic approach to the problem. Such a national body could also place more emphasis on proactive packaging enforcement than trading standards departments, which tend to act only on specific complaints from the public.
	If supermarkets and other retailers are to drive change and reduce packaging, the ball must be in their court. They must be given an incentive. Consumers should be empowered to take action and return unwanted packaging to the point of sale. The Bill requires large retailers to provide an in-store deposit point for the disposal of excess packaging before the customer leaves the store. Broadly speaking, packaging that can be removed by the customer before he or she leaves the shop is excessive, whereas packaging that must stay on the product if it is to arrive at the customer's home in adequate condition is necessary. Making retailers take back the excess packaging that they force on consumers will send the message, loud and clear, that if they do not want to deal with it, they should not put it on the shelf in the first place.
	Disposable plastic bags are a highly visible symbol of wasteful practice on the part of supermarkets. An estimated 17 billion plastic bags are given away annually by United Kingdom supermarkets—enough plastic to cover an area the size of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and west Yorkshire combined. Some countries have attempted to tackle excessive use of disposable plastic bags by introducing bag taxes, but evidence of their effectiveness or otherwise is mixed. Supporters of the idea point to the example of Ireland, where a 15-cent bag tax resulted in a 90 per cent. reduction in plastic bag use, but critics argue that the alternatives to plastic bags are heavier, and that the additional carbon emissions from transporting them offset any gains.
	A better alternative to a plastic bag tax would be requiring supermarkets to participate in a deposit scheme for carrier bags. It would take the form of a levy—say 10p—paid on a bag at the point of sale, which would be redeemed when the bag was returned to the store. The charge would encourage customers to use bags sparingly, and in practice customers bringing the bags back would reuse them until the end of their useful life, when they would redeem the deposit or receive another bag. Attaching a redeemable deposit value to the bags would also create an incentive to reduce plastic bag litter.
	We face many huge environmental challenges, and packaging is just one small but important part of a much bigger environmental picture. Outside the Chamber, I have found huge support for my campaign to cut excess packaging.  The Independent and groups such as the Women's Institute are running similar campaigns. The reaction both of my constituents and of people who have contacted me from around the country has been overwhelmingly positive In circumstances such as these, when a clear case for action is backed up by strong public support, the onus is on Parliament to act. Both the environmental and the economic costs make this an issue that must be tackled urgently.
	The Government have recently come under fire for stealing policies from other parties. Lest my Bill does not receive sufficient parliamentary time during the current Session to progress to Third Reading, I invite the Minister to feel free to adopt the good ideas in it—and I promise that, rather than criticising, I shall be delighted.
	I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Jo Swinson, Chris Huhne, Susan Kramer, Andrew Stunell, Norman Baker, John Barrett, Jenny Willott, Peter Bottomley, Bob Spink, Derek Wyatt, Mark Lazarowicz and Mrs. Sharon Hodgson.

Simon Hughes: I am another veteran of the saga—and, indeed, of the Jubilee line extension process, the saga before it, which involved a private Member's Bill and carry-over, and lasted a long time. We all owe colleagues who volunteer or are volunteered to serve on such Bills our thanks, and we do that without exception in this case. They have no direct interest, as the issues do not bring constituency benefits.
	I support the motion. With this sort of measure, it is imperative that the job is done properly, which requires use of the system for carrying Bills from one Session to the next. That is what has been proposed and it has the unqualified support of all the voices that I have heard so far from around the House.
	I should like to add three things about what remains to be done in the continuing debate and about why we need to complete that debate. First, we need to follow up the questions about funding posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field). The Bill is about plans and powers to build, but it does not automatically deliver the money to build—that has to come from elsewhere. The worst possible outcome would be that we carried the Bill over to the next Session, it completed its stages in Parliament and received Royal Assent, and there then remained some uncertainty about funding. There has always been Government resistance to this being a publicly funded enterprise, for reasons that I understand. It is welcome that the City of London recently announced that it is going to contribute and that the Canary Wharf company has put something into the kitty, as it did for the Jubilee line extension. Given that this is a private Bill, which is not quite the same as a Government Bill albeit that it has Government backing, I hope that the Minister will say that as well as Government support for the process he will offer his Department's support to ensure that the funding continues to come together so that by the time the Bill receives Royal Assent we will know the funding is in place.

Tom Harris: Those are productive, positive suggestions. It is not for me or for the Government to decide how the Public Bill Committee stage should be structured, but I would be more than happy to invite the hon. Gentleman and the representative of the Liberal party to hold exactly that kind of discussion. Ever since I took over this remit, I have tried to involve the hon. Gentleman and to make our deliberations as cross-party as possible. I believe that that is to the benefit of the project, and I am more than happy to place it on the record that that I will try to effect the opportunity that he has proposed.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) paid tribute to the Committee and welcomed the Government's previous commitment to building a station at Woolwich. He also asked for reassurance on the south-east arm of Crossrail to Abbey Wood. He will have to learn to accept yes for an answer. The full construction of Crossrail will take place at the same time. We expect services to begin in 2007, with a steady increase over the next 12 months. Those will include services to Abbey Wood.
	The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) has expressed a great deal of interest in the project from the beginning. He has been a critical supporter of it, for obvious reasons, and has expressed particular concern for his own constituency interests, which is absolutely understandable. He also said that there were no votes in Crossrail for any Member whose constituency lay along the route. I will not pass comment on that, but whether Crossrail provides political advantage for any party is beside the point. It is the right thing to do for London and for the United Kingdom, and that is why it is going ahead.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) is, I believe, the only member of the Select Committee present today. He is easily identifiable as a member of the Committee, as are all its members, by his pale skin. He gave us a taste of the work that the Committee had done, and suggested that that work had been carried out conscientiously, thoroughly and well. I agree with him on every point that he made.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) also raised concerns about the finance package, and I hope that I have managed to address some of the points that he raised. As far as the Government are concerned, there is no uncertainty about the funding package for Crossrail; otherwise, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would not have announced the go-ahead for the project on the date that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I will not pass further comment on the suggestions that he made about the timing of that announcement.
	The hon. Gentleman also talked about the impact of Crossrail on local communities. The work of the Select Committee over the past 21 months or so has been specifically related to dealing with such concerns, and that has been done in a very robust and effective way. Of course, there will also be an opportunity for a Select Committee in the other place to hear any outstanding concerns from communities or businesses on the Crossrail route. The hon. Gentleman finished by saying how important Crossrail was to the United Kingdom as a whole. As a Scottish MP, I believe that it is vital to our capital city and to maintaining London's prominence in the financial market.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) made some pertinent remarks before you asked him to curtail his comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would say to him and to the hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) that I accept that the arguments for extending Crossrail westwards to Reading are persuasive. However, it is not the Government's intention to redraw the Bill as it stands at the moment. After many months of hard work, we have reached the stage at which we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel, and at which the Bill will be given Royal Assent.
	However, it will be up to any future Government to decide, if they so wish, to extend Crossrail. We have already safeguarded the route from Abbey Wood down to Ebbsfleet, and we are considering whether similar action should be taken with regard to the route west from Maidenhead to Reading. We will make an announcement on that shortly. It is not in the interest of the Bill substantially to alter the principle behind it by extending the route westward from Maidenhead to Reading at this stage. I understand why the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) might feel disappointed at that, but I hope that all hon. Members will understand that we need to grasp this opportunity to get a Crossrail Bill through Parliament.

Austin Mitchell: Another problem may be the fact that civil servants are not prepared—I do not know why, because they should be—to stand up to Ministers. A Minister will get a bright idea and say, "Let us do it this way, let us do that, let us adopt such and such an initiative"—and senior civil servants do not dare to say, "We cannot do that with our current resources" or "We cannot do it while we are firing staff under the Gershon programme" or "We cannot do it because our computer systems will not cope with it". Civil servants ought to stand up to Ministers: that is what is primarily needed.

Edward Leigh: That is certainly frustrating. As Chairman, I am trying to establish a greater focus on the Treasury minutes. Members may be aware that our Committee is unique in that the Government must reply to every recommendation, and do so in a Treasury minute. While we are proud of the fact that 90 per cent. of our recommendations are apparently accepted by Government, when we examine the outcome we find that many of them are not adopted more widely across Whitehall, and as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, Members are often frustrated by a lack of accountability on the part of senor civil servants. That is why we are insistent that we will on occasion want not only to interview the current accounting officer, but also to summon back a previous accounting officer when it is clear that the current one is simply speaking from a brief because he or she has been in the post for only a few months and what went wrong was in fact the fault of the previous accounting officer. There is so much shuffling of chairs around Whitehall that it is often difficult for us to direct some light on who or what is responsible for faults.
	I respect the civil service and am generally loyal to it—as the son of a senior civil servant, I know that they have a difficult time. However, although we in this House tend always to lay the blame on their political masters, one of the virtues of the PAC is that it recognises the reality that senior civil servants play a powerful role in our system and that occasionally they must individually be held to account. They must be named and shamed, and sacked where necessary if they have been incompetent rather than merely the policy having been wrong. I am sorry to have to say this to the senior civil service—I know that many senior staff read the  Hansard reports—but we will in future be prepared to do that more often.
	Our 27th report, snappily entitled "Delivering successful IT-enabled business change", identified essential ingredients that help projects avoid ending up on the rocks. Clear and resolute leadership is critical, as is strong budget management and having the internal experience and expertise to get the best from contractors. That sounds obvious, but it is a pity that such lessons are not learned more widely. Above all, there must be a crystal clear sense of where people are trying to get to, and a map of how to get there.
	Clear and resolute leadership requires senior decision makers to ensure clear lines of accountability and strong progress and risk management arrangements. Ministers must be challenged in order to ensure that plans are realistic—the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) made that point. The single farm payment scheme and the Child Support Agency are examples of complex and overly ambitious projects that suffered from a blurring of accountabilities.
	This sounds like a simple task, but management must also keep a tight grip on budgets. That point takes me on to the subject of the Olympic games. We all hope that, when the finishing line is crossed on 27 July 2012, they will be a great success—I am sure they will be. The risks, however, remain. The original bid seriously underestimated the cost of the games and was far too optimistic about the extent of private sector funding. We will shortly have a hearing on that, and we will constantly point a spotlight on the Olympic games so that we do not have merely an, as it were, post hoc PAC report on the Olympics after 2012; we want to keep close track of them as we approach 2012.
	The Olympics budget currently stands at £9 billion. No single individual has overall responsibility for delivering the games and the plethora of bodies involved presents significant risks to timely decision making, among other potential problems. Strong progress monitoring and risk management arrangements are essential, but they are not yet in place. Therefore, the Committee, with the support of the National Audit Office, will continue to keep a close eye on progress. We hope that when we reach 2012 the lessons will have been learned and we can have an Olympic games that are both successful and—for the first time ever—delivered on budget.
	The public sector faces unique challenges. Its projects are every bit as complex as, and often larger than, those in the private sector. We should be optimistic, as some progress is being made. Our reports show that it is possible for the public sector to impose tight management disciplines on big projects. As Committee Chairman, I am keen to ensure that the PAC pays due recognition to public sector successes—that we do not always seek to carp, but that we congratulate, praise and welcome where appropriate.
	The Department for Transport admits that the programme to modernise the west coast main line was originally "naively based". That naivety had enormous financial consequences, but the Strategic Rail Authority and Network Rail stepped in; they strengthened project management, and passenger numbers are now up and journey times are down, and trains are more likely to run on time. There is much still to do, but we congratulate them on turning things around.
	Only if Departments can act as intelligent clients can they be sure of getting the best value for money from external suppliers. Departments need, of course, to understand the process being changed and have clear design requirements, but having the right staff and skills in place to engage effectively with suppliers can be the difference between success and failure. The Child Support Agency did not have the in—house technical expertise it needed to challenge its supplier. No one involved truly knew what they were doing in dealing with the contractors, and the IT system was a turkey from day one. It might prove to have been right to put the CSA out of its misery—most Members accept that—but the Government must also keep an iron grip on the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. It should not have taken 13 years of failure before the CSA was finally put out of its misery.
	Let me now turn to the topic of understanding and communicating the benefits of programmes. Active management and the right mix of staff will go a long way in helping Departments achieve the third in a trinity of success factors: having absolute clarity about the benefits they are trying to achieve. Not only do Departments need to have clarity themselves, but they need to sell the benefits to users, win wider support for change and, ultimately, assess whether the programme or project has achieved what it set out to do. Those are brave words, but when we examined the NHS IT programme we learned that there was still a great deal to do to win hearts and minds in the NHS. That is a major problem with this huge Government IT programme. Scepticism is rife throughout the NHS. With sums involved of more than £12 billion and counting, this is a high stakes game, and the Committee will return to the subject. By contrast, in terms of the west coast main line the SRA successfully engaged stakeholders in support of the programme and to clear effect. If we are to make a success of the NHS IT programme—as we are all committed to do—there must be more engagement with people on the ground, particularly GPs.
	Government need to adopt a more commercial approach to procurement. Central civil Government organisations spend approximately £20 billion a year on goods and services. About one third—almost £8 billion—of the Government's own efficiency savings are expected to come from more efficient procurement. Therefore, procurement is essential to their efficiency programme. There is certainly scope for such savings: in the past six months, in just four Committee reports we identified potential savings of some £1.3 billion a year. Consultancy firms have been on to a good thing, and we found that there was the potential to save £500 million in Departments' use of consultants by making more use of in-house staff, negotiating better contracting terms and getting improved results for the money they spend. We are pleased that the Cabinet Secretary is taking action, but will that produce results? Is all of this just words in Treasury minutes, or have we now moved on from what we see as an over-reliance on external consultancy firms? There is often enough in-house expertise.
	Another £500 million a year could be realised if OGC Buying Solutions was to improve performance and increase co-ordination. I was pleased to see that OGC agreed, and it was set a target to achieve £1 billion a year in savings by 2010.
	Best practice would often make a genuine difference if transferred elsewhere. There could, for instance, be the following savings: more than £220 million from the £2 billion a year spent on food in four key areas of public services; and more than £75 million a year if further education colleges adopt modern procurement practice. Opportunities exist, and even in such mundane matters as food procurement the possible savings are staggering.
	Wherever possible, procurement must be open and competitive. I will raise one minor example; a relatively small sum was wasted, but it offers a useful lesson. The backroom deal pursued by the Department of Health with Dr. Foster Intelligence was a failure in Government's duties to Parliament and the taxpayer. The sums involved were small, but fundamental principles were at stake. The choice of company and the haste with which the deal was concluded gave the Committee cause for concern. It is important that we occasionally draw back from all the huge projects and our need to talk in terms of hundreds of millions or billions of pounds and examine a small project, such as that involving Dr. Foster Intelligence, so that we can learn lessons.
	I have not yet mentioned the Ministry of Defence. Suffice it to say, given the mismanagement of technical and commercial risks on the Astute submarine programme, which was highlighted in the major projects report, that we will watch progress on the massive Trident replacement programme with two eyes fully open. If hon. Members will forgive the pun, little of this is rocket science; the simple adoption of methods tried and tested in much of the public and private sectors could save the taxpayer billions.
	I know that the Government, and Opposition parties, are wary of going back to the public and trying to make the case for efficiency savings. They believe that the public do not believe that Government, or a future Government, can deliver efficiency savings, but they can be delivered and that is happening to a certain extent. An important role of the Committee is to put a spotlight on efficiency savings, to convince the Government to carry on with their work and to convince the Opposition that efficiency savings are deliverable now and in future.
	I come to my final theme, which, again, I have emphasised before. We can only truly judge whether all the expenditure announced in the comprehensive spending review is effectively used by assessing its impact on the end user—the consumer. It is all very well to talk in technical language, but we often forget that we work on behalf of the consumer, who is also usually the taxpayer.
	The Government's "Transformational Government" mantra calls for public services to be designed around the needs of the consumer, not the provider. Unfortunately, to take just one example, that was not the case in the introduction of the new out-of-hours care system. We found that the preparations for the switch in a system used by 9 million patients a year was shambolic. Patients' needs are not best served by the ending of Saturday morning surgeries, nor by a situation where access to advice and treatment is difficult and slow, or where no one knows whether the new service is meant for urgent cases only or for any requests for help. We accept that the new service is getting better, but it is costing about £70 million a year more than expected, which is the last thing that primary care trusts wanted or need in this difficult climate.
	On a more positive note, we returned in this period to the issue of tackling pensioner poverty by encouraging the take-up of entitlements. We were pleased to note that the Department for Work and Pensions is making good progress in encouraging patients to claim the pension credit to which they are entitled; however, billions of pounds lie unclaimed in the Treasury's coffers rather than in pensioners' pockets. Shared targets for the different agencies involved, allowing pensioners to claim linked benefits through a single transaction and focusing effort where we know that take-up is poorer might all help. The Committee is not afraid of new thinking—we seek it and welcome it when we see it—and we also welcome risk taking on the part of the Government.
	I have touched on just a few of the Committee's many reports, and they are sufficient to support our key contentions, although no doubt other hon. Members will highlight their own themes during this short debate. All members of the Committee would wish to say that we rely on our staff. I pay tribute to Mr. Mark Etherton and his colleagues for all their work, and to the National Audit Office, on which we also rely. Its dedication to enhancing scrutiny, improving delivery and support is vital.
	I thank those members who have left the Committee since the last debate: the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), whose appearance in the Committee was so brief that he never actually said a word, yet still we welcomed him; the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas); the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright); and the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt). It seems that they have all moved on to Government, and they doubtless toil night and day to implement the Committee's recommendations. All its other members continue to work hard and assiduously to hold the Government to account, and I am grateful to them for making the Committee a pleasure to chair.
	In July, "The Governance of Britain" Green Paper set out proposals to improve the transparency and accountability of Government to Parliament. As the proposals are debated and fleshed out, I am sure that the example of the parliamentary audit of the public's finances has much to offer. In December, we are organising a conference—I am glad to say that the Chancellor and shadow Chancellor will be attending—to celebrate the decision taken in 1857 by the Select Committee on Public Moneys to create a Committee of Public Accounts. It was a brave decision to create such a Committee then, and it was braver still to entrust the honour of chairing it to an Opposition Member—an example that has been followed in many Commonwealth countries. Any Government might shy away from such a decision today, but they would be wrong to do so.
	I am proud to chair what people generally reckon to be the most powerful Select Committee of the House. We have an effective Committee precisely because we are cross-party and always achieve consensus. Since I became Chairman in 2001, we have made 2,500 recommendations, more than 90 per cent. of which have been accepted, and produced 300 unanimous reports—we have never had a vote. We must not be too sanguine about this, because we must constantly work harder and ask ourselves whether these recommendations are being not only accepted, but implemented across Whitehall.
	Our eyes will remain open and our heads will not turn the other way. On occasion, our tongues will doubtless remain sharp with senior civil servants, and they will not like it, but we shall study, with great care, progress on the massive projects that I mentioned in my opening remarks. I hope and believe that our reports will be high on the reading lists of the officials concerned. We will continue to criticise when criticism is warranted, and praise when praise is earned. That will be our ongoing contribution to ensuring that the Government are a better servant of the people. I commend the motion to the House.

Richard Bacon: Does my right hon. Friend think that this subject might come up when next we see the director-general of the BBC—in, I think, December—and will he invite the Minister to explain what possible objection there can be, given that the NAO already has responsibility for auditing the BBC World Service, which is a by-word for editorial integrity?

Julia Goldsworthy: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that, and the saddest thing is that the tax credits structure was set up with the best of intentions. On paper, it seems that the scheme should work perfectly and help everyone to the exact extent that they need support, but the reality is that it is far too complicated. People come to me all the time who say, "I'd rather not have any money whatsoever than be subjected to this system." That makes me wonder whether the Government should not look at tax credits again. Perhaps they should consider a fixed-payments system, as that might be fairer to the people whom they are trying to help.
	The wider theme has to do with the Prime Minister's approach to such matters. His intentions are no doubt genuine, but the structures are sometimes so complicated that they are out of control. Other reports that we are considering this evening make that clear. For instance, the report on pensioner poverty shows that millions of pensioners eligible for pension credit still do not claim it. Some pensioners find the system too complicated, while others do not want to undertake assessment on the telephone. Yet others find that the pension credit interacts with other benefits, such as those for council tax and housing, in too complex a manner. Once again, the question to be asked has to do with whether that system is more important than the person whom it is supposed to serve.
	Another problem is that the amount of bureaucracy involved will rise as more pensioners become eligible for pension credit. If 80 per cent. of pensioners become eligible for the entitlement, at what point will the Government decide that it should be universal rather than means tested? Most worryingly, the PAC report on pension credit found that certain vulnerable groups will be left behind. In theory, no pensioner living in poverty will miss out on pension credit, but the reality, especially in rural areas, is that such people are difficult to identify and to target.
	The experience with other schemes is useful in that regard. For example, Warm Front was a big, national programme that was easy to roll out to assist people living in conurbations, as the index of deprivation could be used to identify whole wards where poverty was concentrated. However, it proved very difficult to pick out people living in small pockets of poverty in neighbouring wards, even though they were in as much need as those targeted under the scheme. It is important that the same groups of people are not left behind by other Government schemes.
	Another theme raised in today's debate has been the poor quality of commissioning. That has further undermined the structures adopted for Government schemes such as the ones that I have described, and it has also had implications for service and for cost-effectiveness. The PAC report into the NHS IT project showed that there had been huge cost overruns, no clear idea about the overall expenditure on the project and significant delays to important aspects.
	The situation in respect of tax credits is similar. When I was a member of the Public Administration Committee, Sir David Varney talked about instituting a change in the operation of the tax credit system so that instead of payments stopping immediately when an overpayment was found there would be a three-week window to give the individual an opportunity to appeal. Sir David said that it would take a year to institute that one change in the computer programme; no doubt, since then there have been other unintended consequences that needed to be resolved.
	Those examples raise questions about Departments' experience in commissioning such services. What are the reporting standards when problems—relating to the CSA, for example—are investigated by the Department? One of my constituents had a problem with the CSA; payments had been made to the agency for the best part of two years yet she had received nothing. I wrote to the CSA on her behalf and was told that the agency accepted that there was a problem with her case, caused by some of the IT changes that had been taking place. The CSA could not tell me when, or if, it would be able to resolve the problem, but as it had written to me it assumed the matter was closed and contacted my constituent to tell her so. In how many other cases do the records show that a problem has been resolved when that is patently not so and people continue to receive a poor service? Can we be sure that the lessons are being learned? The Public Accounts Committee plays an important role in that regard.
	The PAC report on consulting made a series of recommendations, which were taken up by the Government, to ensure not only that Departments know how much they are spending on consultants and that they routinely assess the value of using them, but also that they share the information so that best practice can be adopted across Departments. It is great that the recommendations have been accepted, but what is being done to ensure that lessons are learned when responsibility is pushed down to local level?
	The Committee's report on out-of-hours services made it clear that primary care trusts were not experienced enough to know what they were trying to commission. In my constituency, a PCT took on a new deliverer of out-of-hours services, claiming that it offered better value for money. The result was appalling services that were internally audited so the people commissioning them had no idea about what was being delivered. Only when the matter was raised in the House did Serco pull its finger out and start to invest considerably more in the service than it had intended. If responsibilities are to be devolved to local government, or any other local body, lessons learned at national level need to be passed on, too.
	The same point applies to Sure Start, where the Committee's report showed that there were capacity problems and that staff lacked financial capability. We need to make sure that local authorities know what is being asked of them and that it is clear from the Government's point of view.
	The capability gap needs to be properly identified and the PAC plays an important role in doing so. It often has a vital role, too, in helping to fill the accountability gap; for example, in its work on the Rural Payments Agency, because people had no way of channelling their frustration, and on the NHS. Similarly, there is no clear chain of accountability in the CSA or tax credit systems and the Committee satisfies that lack. Without the doggedness of the Committee, the Government and their Departments would be much slower to learn their lessons.
	I thank the Committee for its excellent work and urge Members to continue it.

David Taylor: The hon. Lady talks about lessons learned. Does she agree that a common theme in many of the systemic failures, which, as she said, often affect the most vulnerable in our society, is that the delivery of schemes that were broadly approved in this place is made too complex? The CSA, the RPA and the miners' compensation scheme are just three examples of such over-complexity. How can the message be spread across Departments that they should keep things simple? Keep it simple and the failures will not multiply and spread as they have done, especially in IT systems.

Austin Mitchell: I cannot accept that accusation from my hon. Friend, although I accept most of his accusations against other organisations. We agree fairly substantially about them. In a sense, the NAO was too soft in the early stages about the private finance initiative, but it then gradually began to get tougher as it got to grips with the issue. In demanding that the savings from the selling on of PFI debt be paid back to the public sector, it has shown that it has more teeth and is able to deal with the issue. Perhaps it was a little too welcoming at first, but it now has the situation under control. This is a learning experience for all—for the NAO as well as for us.
	I therefore acquit the NAO of my hon. Friend's accusation. Its reports are very cautious and one has to understand their language and read through them. Sir John Bourn tends to hint at things rather than come out extravagantly and say, "These people are making a terrible mistake. It's an absolute disaster!" Instead, we have a mild response in the report, but that is inevitable. We are working in that kind of atmosphere, and it is up to us as politicians to put the political punch into it and start laying the blame and throwing the accusations around. It is not up to the NAO. Let us not be critical of it.
	I am critical, however, of the unwillingness of civil servants to stand up and say, "This won't work," or, "It can only be made to work with a lot more extra spending." The rural payments were a classic instance of that. Ministers, with support from the farmers, went for the most complicated system. It was a system that nobody else used, and I do not know why we went for it. By that time I had come off the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, but my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) might be able to tell us the answer. Politicians went for the most complex system, and it was pushed through at a time when the Rural Payments Agency was getting rid of staff who had close contact with the farming industry and knew the people in their area. Those staff were being fired, but subsequently had to be brought back, because the agency could do not do the job.
	Fortunately, the agency's head eventually appeared before the Committee and gave quite a good account of himself, although I still think he was wrong. He sent monthly reports to Ministers saying, "We're on course and things are on line to start the payments." Then he began to put more weasel words in and said that the agency was not quite ready. Then, finally, the total disaster emerged. However, he did not, at the start, say to Ministers, "We can't do it with these staffing levels; we can't do it and get rid of these people; we can't do it on the basis of the regional structure that we have." He did not say that, but he should have done. The Chairman of the Committee said that making such comments would have been career-limiting—and so it would. But presiding over disaster is even more career-limiting, and it is necessary to point that out.
	I have criticised civil servants by saying that they do not have the commercial skills to negotiate better deals on PFIs, and that is certainly true at local government and hospital level. There is a Treasury team to advise them and put backbone into them, but it cannot do everything and go all over the country.

Richard Bacon: It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I have been a member of the Committee for six years, and have seen a number of common themes emerge. I want to address just a few of those themes, with particular reference to the reports mentioned in the motion.
	The first issue that I shall deal with—I hope that the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury will address this point in her reply—was touched on by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) in his intervention on the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). The question is: what is the centre doing to make sure that when projects are spread out across Whitehall Departments and agencies, things actually happen? Obviously, there is inherent tension between avoiding a situation in which the Treasury is too involved, and tries to micro-manage matters that should be the responsibility of Departments, and avoiding sitting back and watching a Department make a mess of things with the taxpayers' money given to it by the Treasury.
	I have not had the pleasure of being a Treasury Minister and being vexed by such issues—although I am sure that that is something that history will correct in the fullness of time. I am sure that Treasury Ministers worry very much about that tension between the centre and departmental responsibility. The tendency has been to let Departments sort things out. Some years ago, there was the fiasco of the individual learning accounts—an adult training scheme with great intentions, which was designed to help the most vulnerable, and which failed miserably. I remember thinking, "Where was the Treasury?" Similarly, in the case of the Rural Payments Agency—although I respect the fact that we are not talking about that issue today, Mr. Deputy Speaker—it was for the Department to sort out the issue. The Treasury left the Department to it, and left it to bear the financial brunt, too.
	The Paddington health campus scheme was the subject of our ninth report, and at the time I found myself thinking about not where the Treasury involvement was, but where the Department of Health involvement was, in relation to the local strategic health authority and the local hospital trusts involved. The ostensible purpose of the scheme was to merge the St. Mary's NHS Trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust. However, as conclusion (i) of our report said,
	"The Paddington Health Campus scheme, as proposed...was based on an inadequate Outline Business Case, constructed without the benefit of input from doctors and nurses as to the required clinical content."
	We went on to say, in conclusion (iii), that
	"It took several years after the initial outline business case for the Campus partners to reach a clear position on the clinical content of the Campus, the land required, the planning constraints and the likely cost and affordability of the scheme. The scheme's development was also handicapped by insufficient manpower and capability. NHS Trusts taking forward building schemes should have early external assessments...of their capacity to deliver complex schemes and firm timetables against which they can measure progress."
	The Treasury minutes responded:
	"Trusts are advised to appoint a dedicated full-time project director and DH has established specialist Project Director's courses at selected universities. Proven, high quality Project Directors are also deliberately moved to new schemes so hard won experience and expertise is not wasted."
	That is all very good, and I think that we all say amen to that. However, the question is this: the Government may think that it is good to have full-time project directors, and that they are necessary for delivering projects successfully, but are they actually acting on that in practice?
	That brings me to my second question, which is not so much about the centre versus the local, but about whether we are getting the basics right, at whatever level. Our 14th report was on delivering digital communications through the Bowman programme. That was a so-called combat infrastructure platform—a battlefield communications system. The project was inherently complicated, because it sought to make sure that all the different players in a battle, whether they were battle tanks, infantry or air support, could talk to each other, and to HQ, and all that had to be delivered properly. It was an extraordinarily complex project, yet it did not have a senior responsible owner. It was not that the senior responsible owners kept changing, as we have seen happen in many projects; there just was not one at all. As our report concluded,
	"There is no individual within the Department with full responsibility for ensuring that the Bowman CIP"—
	combat infrastructure platform—
	"project meets its objectives. In 2006, the Department belatedly appointed a senior officer to act as Senior Responsible Owner. But he lacks the authority and time to effectively discharge this onerous responsibility and is only supported by a small staff."
	The Ministry of Defence, and subsequently the Treasury in its minutes, concluded that that was an omission, and that
	"It is the Department's policy that large and complex projects or groups of projects have a Senior Responsible Owner appointed on behalf of and accountable to the Defence Management Board."
	It is a good idea to have project directors and senior responsible owners in charge of projects, but even if a senior responsible owner is in charge, is that enough? It would appear not, because our first conclusion in our 27th report on IT-enabled business change, which was referred to earlier, was that
	"A fifth (21 per cent.) of Senior Responsible Owners of mission critical and high risk IT-enabled programmes had not met with the nominated Minister and a further 28 per cent. met the Minister less than once a quarter. For these major high risk undertakings to succeed, Ministers need to be briefed fully and candidly at least quarterly on risks, progress and cost escalations".
	In its reply, the Treasury states:
	"Ministers and Accounting Officers should, in particular, be briefed when there is significant deviation from the programme or project plan—that is, where there is more than three months slippage".
	I am bound to ask, why should Ministers not be briefed all the time? Why should they be briefed only when there is slippage? Should not Ministers know what is going on in mission-critical projects all the time, whether they are going well or not? Why do Ministers not say, at an early stage, "Why don't you have a senior responsible owner?"?
	I remember talking to a Minister who was involved in one high-profile case that the Committee considered—a typical IT project that had gone wrong. I am sad to say that that Minister resigned, because he had the wisdom to vote the right way on the Iraq war—that is to say, against—and he could not do that and support the Government policy of the day. I am glad to say that his career has been restored now; he is actually in the Cabinet, so that may give hon. Members a clue as to who I am talking about. I remember him saying, in respect of a particular project, "I sat in a room, having listened to what people said, and having read about the matter, and I said, 'This isn't going to work, is it?'" He said that there were 12 people in the room—civil servants and consultants—and they all said, "Oh yes, Minister, it will work." He said that there was no one in the room who said, "Well, actually, no. You've got a point; there are some serious concerns." There was no critical friend at court to make sure that the concerns were given a serious airing and had a serious voice, and as a result, he signed off the project. Of course, his instincts and concerns were absolutely right, and the project hit the buffers, just as so many others do.
	In another case, I was talking to the senior computer contractor from a major firm which has been involved in many of the projects that we have examined, who was desperate to talk to the Minister to find out how to resolve an impasse and get some clarity on direction, and finally begged the Department for a meeting with the Minister. Within 10 minutes of that request, the permanent secretary himself was on the phone saying, "You don't talk to Ministers. We talk to Ministers."
	If I were a Minister—as I mentioned to the Exchequer Secretary earlier, she does not seem to think that that is likely, but in the fullness of time I very much hope that we will have the chance to put into practice some of the things that we are talking about. It seems to me essential for Ministers to find critical friends at court, who would tell them not what they wanted to hear, but what they did not want to hear. I am sure that the more intelligent and switched-on Ministers do that. There is also the problem, as we heard earlier, of civil servants not being able to get the access that they require to Ministers, as we heard again in the context of the Rural Payments Agency.
	In relation to the 27th report, there was one answer from the Treasury that I thought was particularly interesting. We said in our conclusion (iii) that
	"over half of Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) are in their first SRO role, and nearly half spend less than 20 per cent. of their time on such duties."
	Lack of time was a key factor in some of the other projects that we looked at. We went on to say:
	"Lack of relevant experience, combined with a regular turnover of post-holders, adds unnecessary risk to the management of IT-enabled change."
	We said:
	"To address these issues, departments should appoint a Senior Responsible Owner at the outset of an IT-enabled business change on the presumption that he or she will remain in post until the programme or project is delivered, with performance and reward linked to agreed targets and milestones."

David Taylor: I shall not refer to the RPA, as that report is not under discussion, but I worked on major IT projects for almost 30 years before coming to this place, and does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the common themes with major IT project failures is that the client Department needs to be an intelligent client, and it cannot be an intelligent client if it outsources virtually every aspect of the development of computer systems? It needs to have its own internal trusted, experienced people, who can balance out the glowing reports given by the would-be supplier of the software.

Richard Bacon: I completely agree. I remember the then chairman of the Inland Revenue, as it was then, Sir Nick Montagu, fiercely denying what was plain to everybody else—that the Inland Revenue had ceased to be an intelligent client, because so much of its sourcing function and its buying function was spread out among different consultancies that it was only one or two of the consulting firms that had an overview of what was going on. The Inland Revenue was no longer capable of answering the intelligent questions that one wanted to ask, because too much of its expertise was outsourced.
	I was talking about the appointment of a senior responsible owner, and the presumption that the SRO would remain in post until the project was seen through. The interesting thing was the Government's answer in the Treasury minute, in which the Treasury says:
	"The Government agrees that continuity of leadership is of critical importance".
	That is in paragraph 11, on page 3 of the minute on the 27th report. However, the next sentence states:
	"Although the natural progression of civil servants between roles may mean that a project has more than one SRO during its lifetime, the expectation should be that the SRO should change only when absolutely necessary, at appropriate stages to allow an orderly handover, and that the SRO will not move on until a replacement has been put in place."
	That is common sense, but why does the natural progression of civil servants between roles mean that a project should have more than one SRO? Why should not the SRO finish the project, deliver it and then get the natural progression to the next post in their career? Unless and until they have completed the project, they should not have a natural progression. If that means paying civil servants more in post, so be it.
	I know that I am not talking rubbish about this, because I have heard Sir Peter Gershon, and before him various other civil servants, talking about the need to reward civil servants who stay in post to see projects through. Yet here we have the Treasury saying:
	"the natural progression of civil servants between roles may mean that a project has more than one SRO".
	I say that the SRO should see the thing through. The project should be short enough for one SRO to deliver it. It should be done in bite-size chunks that can be delivered. That is one of the central problems that we face in getting an improvement across Government.

Richard Bacon: That is a scandal. We must start changing the culture and valuing the delivery of projects, and that requires changes on the part of politicians, so that Ministers are not trying simply to grab a quick headline, but to deliver commitments and see them through. That is probably as difficult for the present Labour Government as it will be for a future Conservative Government. It is a fundamental and inherent problem in delivering good government.
	I shall refer to one more thing in the Treasury minutes on the report. We had said in recommendation (ix):
	"The Office of Government Commerce and the Delivery and Transformation Group have not had the power to halt failing programmes and projects. The Treasury's new Major Projects Review Group will however be reviewing all new business cases for high risk or mission critical programmes".
	For some years I have wanted to see some central capacity—some power at the centre— to say, "You've failed. No more money. We're pulling the plug." It seems obvious that that power should sit in the Treasury, but the Treasury minute answering that point, paragraph 21, says not that the Treasury will have that power, but rather that
	"The Government agrees that the MPRG should make it clear to Departmental project owners what they need to do to address its concerns."
	There is enormous fear of greater interference. I appreciate that there are people saying that there is too much interference from the centre with Departments, just as there is from Departments down across the country—but one of my first points, which I hope the Exchequer Secretary will address, is whether the balance is right. We do not want huge amounts of intervention. We want the right intervention and the right power at the right time at the centre. I am not convinced that we have got that balance right.
	My next point, which is related, is that the same problems occur again and again. In our 31st report on the Government's use of consultants is a good example. We said in recommendation (ii):
	"Departments and OGC do not routinely know how much money is spent on consultants",
	in recommendation (iii):
	"Consultants are often used when in-house staff have the necessary skills and are less expensive",
	in recommendation (iv):
	"Departments do not routinely assess the value of the work they receive from consultants",
	in recommendation (v):
	"The capability of departments to be intelligent customers"—
	the point made by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire—
	"is weakened by insufficient sharing of information on consultants' performance",
	and in recommendation (vi) that
	"40 per cent of clients consider they have used consultants when it was not necessary."
	We said in recommendation (viii):
	"Departments do not regularly plan for, or achieve, the transfer of skills from consultants to their staff to build internal capabilities"
	and in recommendation (ix):
	"Some consultant charges lack transparency",
	and so on.
	The interesting thing is that not only were all those recommendations and the themes relating to them clearly identified in our Committee's 2002 report on better value for money from professional services—we make this point in our recommendation (i), which the Treasury refers to in its minute in reply on page 31—but the Cabinet Office identified those problems in a study which its own scrutiny unit did eight years previously, in 1994. It stated clearly that the Government were poor at identifying when consultants should be used, poor at appointing them, poor at project management during the process, poor at transferring skills to in-house staff and poor at learning lessons for the future.
	None of this is new at all, which is why I asked the Exchequer Secretary about the tension between the centre and the local and the centre and the Department, and about whether, without being heavy-handed or bureaucratic, things can be done to improve that balance. I hope that she will find time to address that issue specifically.
	I have been reading Michael Barber's book "Instruction to Deliver", in which he discusses the need to improve Departments' performance, in an environment in which the Treasury would not co-operate. He refers to Sir David Normington, who is now at the Home Office, telling him about the problems that he would face. The Treasury would shut him out, permanent secretaries would neither talk to him nor give him information and he would not be able to get to the Prime Minister—then Mr. Blair—because the policy unit would be in the way. That meant that he would probably be finished before he even started, so he had to think about how to get round the situation. He proposed a series of simple measures and behaviours to be adhered to—including, by the way, abolishing the delivery unit after a few years. He thought that that would help to improve its performance, and I think that in some ways it did. The whole story illustrates a vexing and long-term problem in the nature of how we govern ourselves, and I would be interested in the Exchequer Secretary's thoughts on that.
	Finally, I want to say a quick word about the BBC. I see no good reason why it should not be subject to the same degree, quality and type of scrutiny as other bodies that undertake public expenditure. The criticism that it, an important national institution, has come in for recently may be down to the fact that it has not had enough of the right scrutiny early enough. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) is no longer in her place, because a good example of BBC extravagance took place in her constituency, when Dame Ellen MacArthur arrived back from sailing around the world. We are all familiar with BBC producers turning up to cover the same event; I have asked people, as a party game, how many BBC producers they think turned up to cover the return of Dame Ellen. They usually say five, 10, 15, 20 or even 30—but in fact 64 BBC producers were there. With the best will in the world—

Philip Dunne: My hon. Friend, along with most other Members, will have had countless constituency cases where, as a result of some of the errors inherent in the system, some of the most vulnerable in our society have been encouraged to repay substantial amounts of money amounting to thousands of pounds. When such errors occur, it undoubtedly shakes the confidence of those individuals in the quality of our benefit system. It is no surprise to hear that some people would rather wash their hands of it.
	Another thing that came out of inquiries into tax credits was a lack of transparency in Government when introducing the scheme. The income disregard was increased in the 2005 Budget from £2,500 to £25,000, and at the time I recall that very little, if any, information was provided by the Treasury on the financial consequences of that. An overall number was put into the Red Book, which was an agglomeration of different aspects of the benefit changes involving tax credits, but that particular income disregard was never specifically quantified, and it was only as a result of persistent questioning by our Committee that the Treasury were prepared to come up with the estimated cost of the disregard, two years later. That is a sorry state of affairs, because it had clearly made the calculation but was not prepared to make it public at the time, presumably for reasons of political embarrassment. Again, that demonstrates the value of the Committee in holding not just Government to account, but their officers and organs.

Philip Hammond: This has been an interesting and useful debate, and I congratulate all hon. Members who have taken part. Through my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, I would like to congratulate the Committee on its valuable work. Increasingly, an important part of the scrutiny function of this House falls on the shoulders of the Committee, and it discharges that role extremely well. It will become a more significant role in the future as the effective and efficient delivery of public services moves to the centre stage of the political debate. The reports of my hon. Friend's Committee are essential reading for anyone aspiring to Government and who recognises that delivery is the key measure by which this Government and future Governments are judged by the electorate.
	The Committee has been instrumental in identifying billions of pounds of waste and inefficiency: £6 billion of tax credits overpaid because of complexity built into the system, with £500 million already written off and another £1.4 billion likely to be uncollectible; £500 million relating to the CSA project; £500 million wasted on the misuse of consultants; and as my hon. Friend made clear earlier, the Committee's eye is very much focused on the £9 billion Olympic budget, and the potential issues that may emerge there.
	My hon. Friend referred to the salutary effect that the prospect of appearing before the Committee can have on civil servants. I know from talking to civil servants in various Departments over the years that he is absolutely right. How often have any of us in conversation with a civil servant—at all sorts of levels—heard a reference to the possibility of having to appear before the PAC to account for something as a significant influence on the way that they conduct themselves? I hope that my hon. Friend and his Committee carry on holding civil servants and Ministers to account through that process.
	Perhaps we could consider for a moment the context within which the debate takes place. My hon. Friend referred to the comprehensive spending review, which delivers a significantly tighter settlement for the funding of public services than most Departments have enjoyed for a number of years. That throws into focus the agenda of safeguarding public services in this environment, and as my hon. Friend said, it means that everyone has to raise their game to ensure that we can continue to enjoy high quality public services in the face of tough spending limits.
	My hon. Friend did not actually refer to the CSR settlement as sharing the proceeds of growth, but that is exactly what it is. It comes at a time when there is an increasing awareness on all sides of the political debate that the public want increasing quantities of ever higher quality public services, but they also want tax, over time, to take a smaller proportion of our gross domestic product. That challenge goes right to the heart of the Committee's essential role in ensuring value for money and the best possible efficiency in delivering public services.
	However, there is another aspect to the debate to which my hon. Friend did not refer, but he could have done. As we live in an increasingly globalising economy, the need to maintain our international competitiveness will increasingly constrain the ability of Governments to go on raising an ever higher share of GDP in tax, even if they wish to, to fund public services. We have to address the desire for ever higher quality public services through the improvement of efficiency and better outcomes, rather than simply increasing the volume of inputs. In a situation where 40 per cent. of our GDP consists of publicly delivered services, falling public sector productivity drags down the overall performance of our economy and thus our international competitiveness.
	The challenge will be to deliver ever more with a given level of resource—something that may sound challenging, but the private sector has had to do it for years simply to survive, while delivering ever higher quality products and services at ever more competitive prices. This agenda puts a particular focus on the efficiency savings programme in Government. My hon. Friend rightly referred to the Committee's report on the shortcomings of the efficiency programme, in which the Committee identified bogus efficiency savings. The apparent efficiency was delivered only at the cost of a decrease in the quality of service—a reduction in inputs but a corresponding reduction in outputs—or, even worse, supposed efficiency was delivered only by not counting an additional input cost somewhere else.
	We welcome the possible role for the National Audit Office in reviewing Gershon savings on a Department-by-Department basis. It is clear from the Public Accounts Committee report that greater transparency in the Gershon process and independent audit of its results are needed.
	One or two overarching themes emerge both from the Committee's report and hon. Members' comments in this evening's debate. The key theme that struck me is capacity—whether the system has the capacity to deliver the complex, top-down solutions that Ministers prescribe from a political perspective. The impression that one gets from the debate is of a system that is overloaded with initiatives, which are increasingly complex and often require huge IT projects to enable their delivery. One also gets the impression that those who might say to their political masters, "This is not do-able; the system doesn't have the capacity; you're asking for too much, too quickly" are culturally inclined not to make such statements. I cannot say whether that reflects career judgments by individual civil servants or a deeper cultural malaise. There is also perhaps a bias towards always assuming the most favourable rather than the most likely outcome when planning ahead. That has led to a series of outright failures, some of which have been mentioned tonight, and a further series of on-going projects, which cannot be described as outright failures but suffer serious continuing problems, which, in many cases, look suspiciously like systemic problems that need resolving.
	I was encouraged by references by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough to some successful projects that the Committee had identified. It is vital that the Committee looks for the good as well as the bad and then focuses on the challenge of disseminating best practice across Government, and acquiring and disseminating best practice from the private sector. From my hon. Friend's comments and the balance in his speech between the good projects and those that have not been so successful, we might conclude that a pretty big challenge remains to ensure that lessons from successful projects are learned and disseminated effectively.
	Several hon. Members referred to the tension between what might be termed the delivery and the policy-making parts of Government. In an interesting exchange about the development of civil servants' careers, a suspicion arose that the policy-making part of Government continues to be perceived as the superior branch. Several hon. Members mentioned difficulties with leadership and accountability and the way in which sometimes nobody appears to be in charge of a project. I understand that the permanent secretary in the Department for Work and Pensions could not tell the Committee who was in charge of the CSA computer project. That echoes a comment that the Governor of the Bank of England made to the Treasury Committee a couple of weeks ago. When asked who was in charge at the time of Northern Rock, he asked whether Committee members would care to define what they meant by "in charge". Again, that is symptomatic of a cultural problem.
	Reference was made to the tendency to move civil servants around before projects were completed. That, again, is a facet of a culture whereby generalism is encouraged and regarded as vital to career development. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough agrees, but there is a case for saying that, although the development of individuals' careers and the human resources policy of Departments are important, the overriding function of the delivery part of the civil service at senior level is safeguarding the public purse and the quality of outcomes for service consumers. There is a case for saying that the needs of career development must be subordinate to those of effective product delivery. I hope that the Committee will continue to press for that cultural shift in Government thinking.

Julia Goldsworthy: Does not the Minister agree that people on low incomes are most vulnerable to fluctuations in their income and that they are most likely to suffer if there is an overpayment, as their tax credits would suddenly be stopped?

Claire Curtis-Thomas: I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Olympic Delivery Authority on bringing in the first construction contracts on time and under budget. Those contracts are managed by a capable engineer: Howard Shiplee. Will my hon. Friend also commend our Government on introducing project bank accounts and project insurance in an attempt to control any overspend outside the control of the ODA, and to ensure that the construction companies involved get paid and we look after small and medium-sized enterprises as a result?

Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is right, and it is nice to hear a contribution that celebrates our success in winning the games and is upbeat about our ability to deliver them. We already know that we are ahead of previous games in terms of preparation and planning, including in securing flows of private funding and sponsorship. Our public investment has generated private investment of about £1.5 billion in the Olympic village and £6 billion in Stratford.
	To respond to what the hon. Member for Gainsborough said about preparations, there is one body, and ultimately one individual, with overall responsibility for delivery, and beneath them there are clear reporting lines, as set out in the Treasury minutes. The Olympic board is overseeing preparations for the games. That is being co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Olympics and the Mayor of London, and the Minister for the Olympics reports directly to the Prime Minister. It is also incorrect to state that strong monitoring and risk management arrangements are not in place. They have been explained in the Treasury minutes.
	I wish now to discuss broader Government initiatives by briefly addressing five areas that might be of interest to Members. On 9 October, the Chancellor announced in his comprehensive spending review plans that will release £30 billion for reinvestment. The next stage will be for Departments to publish value-for-money delivery agreements by the end of the year. That will set out publicly how they will achieve their value-for-money savings. From then on, they will report biannually on their performance to ensure that the public are informed of progress towards meeting the value-for-money targets. As the hon. Member for Gainsborough has called for breakdowns of departmental performance, I anticipate that he will be keen to read them. The Government welcome the National Audit Office's continued vigorous interest in scrutinising the process to ensure that it achieves its goals.
	A second area of great interest is the progress of the Government Department capability reviews. Fifteen Departments have already been reviewed, and the findings are published on the Cabinet Office website. We await with intense interest the results on the final two Departments: Revenue and Customs and my own Department, the Treasury. They should be published by winter 2008 at the latest. Furthermore, we are keen to ensure that this process has teeth, so once initial reviews are published, each Department has three follow-up board meetings to review progress against the findings.
	Thirdly, there are the Sharman orders. In response to Lord Sharman's report "Holding to Account", the Government announced that they would strengthen the statutory powers of the National Audit Office's Comptroller and Auditor General. Parliament has approved a number of orders to give the CAG statutory audit responsibility for non-departmental public bodies and special health authorities. Lord Sharman also recommended that the CAG become auditor of the non-departmental public bodies that have also been set up as companies, and he will become eligible to do so from the financial year 2008-09, once the Companies Act 2006 is in force. The Treasury is working closely with the NAO and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform—the successor to the Department of Trade and Industry—to ensure that the changes are implemented from April 2008, and to date 90 companies and subsidiary companies have been identified. When the powers are in place, the NAO will be able to offer Parliament a more comprehensive account of public business, so hon. Members will have a fuller picture of how public money is used.
	Fourthly, I commend to the House a short and readable new Treasury publication "Managing Public Money". It is now the Treasury's reference guide on standards and ethics in the use of public funds. Its predecessor, "Government Accounting", had been around for many years and was an essential tool for all parts of the public sector, but over time it had become too lengthy and unwieldy. The new publication is much shorter, and is drafted to set out the principles that need to be applied. It is important for everyone making decisions relating to the use of public resources to appreciate the high standards expected. Of particular interest to the House will be the guidance to officials on parliamentary and Treasury controls over public expenditure and the need for legislation to enable Government spending. Copies of "Managing Public Money" have been sent to the Library and to the relevant parliamentary Committees—and they are doubtless in fantastically high demand.
	I hope that the fifth initiative that I wish to explain will ease all our work in monetary scrutiny. On 3 July, the Prime Minister announced his goals for constitutional change and proposed that the Executive become more accountable to the public and Parliament through 12 reforms. In addition, the Government are committed to enabling the close scrutiny of public spending, for which reliable information is a prerequisite. We have a strong track record of improving financial management and transparency over the past decade, but in one area Parliament's task has been complicated by the ways in which records of public money have been formatted.
	Largely for historical reasons, we use different systems to set the control budgets, to present the annual estimates and to publish audited accounts. The accounts produced are all accurate and comply with their own reporting principles, but it is not easy, for instance, to compare planned expenditure with actual expenditure when using these systems. The differences between those outputs can cause confusion and inefficiency, so the task of parliamentary scrutiny of public spending is made more difficult than it need be.
	The Government have therefore put in place an alignment project. In practical terms that will involve substantial effort, but it will help us progress in respect of the need for clarity, coherence, consistency and transparency, and therefore better accountability. The core part of the project is a better alignment of budgets, estimates and accounts, but it has wider implications. We will also be reviewing the frequency, format and terminology of all financial documents laid before Parliament. We aim to put changes in place by the end of the CSR 2007 period, subject to legislative requirements.
	The Government look forward to consulting Parliament to take that project forward, and will work closely with the Public Accounts Committee and the NAO on its detailed implementation. I hope and believe that it will be a welcome step towards making the various systems used to control and report on public spending easier to understand and more efficient to operate.
	Finally, many happy returns to the PAC, which is 150 years old. I do not know what the symbol is for 150th anniversaries, but perhaps in the case of the PAC it should be a magnifying glass. I have been looking at the records of some old debates. I found one from 102 years ago, in which it emerged that the Admiralty had spent nearly £500,000 without having signed a contract to do so. It seems that some things never change, despite all our best efforts. All of us who have been involved are proud of the way in which the PAC is constituted and does its job for Parliament. It provides an invaluable service to all of us, and I wish it a happy anniversary and many more years.

Edward Leigh: I thank the Exchequer Secretary for her kind words to the Committee. I thank all those who have taken part in the debate, especially the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), the Father of the House, who is a stalwart member of the Committee. I also thank him for laying to rest the canard that we are somehow trying to compromise the editorial independence of the BBC. There is no question of our trying to do that.
	I thank the spokesman for the Liberal party for her speech, and especially for reminding us of the accountability gap, which I have not heard expressed so clearly before. I also thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who brings a lot of life to our Committee. He made a fair point about civil servants. Certainly, in my brief inglorious career as a Minister I never encountered a compliant civil servant. It was more a question of "No, Minister" than "Yes, Minister". There is a serious point, however. We saw with the Rural Payments Agency saga that while the permanent secretary, Sir Brian Bender, had a close and continuing relationship with the Secretary of State, the project director did not. It is a question of officers and men, I think. Many project directors have a tenuous link with Ministers, and that is something that we need to address.
	I am grateful for the assiduity of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), and especially his comments about the need for a single project director. We have gone back to the point again and again in these debates, but it needs underlining. For instance, for the Bowman project—a huge Ministry of Defence project—there was no senior responsible owner.
	I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), who is a new member of the Committee, which reminds me to take up one more important point about where our systems often fail. As we saw with the NHS IT project, we often publish our report only for the Department to say that it has dealt with the problem. That is because we have shot ourselves in the foot, because our report has been so long delayed after the initial NAO report. I am trying to put pressure on the otherwise excellent NAO to try to speed up the process. It is because it is so careful that the process can take so long, but I want to see clearance speeded up. I say to Ministers and civil servants who read the report of this debate that there are often long delays between the NAO team finishing its investigation and its being allowed to publish its report. I want to see the process brought right up to the PAC hearing, so that we get up-to-date information. After the hearing, the NAO should write the draft report much more quickly, so that we can publish it. The whole process should be completed within three months, if possible, so that on the day that the PAC publishes its report we do not get the response from Ministers, as we frequently do, "Well, it's a very interesting report, but we've dealt with all those points." I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting that point.
	I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), the shadow Chief Secretary, for his highly intelligent and thoughtful contribution. He reminded us that we are now committed to sharing the proceeds of growth. As a loyal member of the Conservative party, I accept that mantra, which has been put forward by our Front Benchers. It is not for me, as the Chairman of the PAC, to get involved in that debate now, but I am entitled to make the point that just a 2 per cent. efficiency saving every year would deliver £8 billion either for tax cuts or for more spending on essential public services. Our work is, therefore, right at the centre of the debate.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House takes note of the 9th, the 11th, the 13th to the 40th and the 43rd to the 45th Reports, and of the First Special Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 2006-07, and of the Treasury Minutes thereon (Cm 7076, 7077,7151, 7152, 7216).

Alan Beith: This debate is about school building and reorganisation in the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency, which is a large one, covering more than 1,000 square miles, in an enormous county with a small population. Some of the schools are within a few miles of Ashington, such as Lynemouth, Ellington and Linton; others, such as Cambo, are not far from Newcastle airport and others are closer to Edinburgh than to Tyneside, including those in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and are the northernmost schools in England in the Minister's jurisdiction. I am glad that the Minister for Schools and Learners, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), who takes an interest in our problems in Northumberland, is in the Chamber to answer the debate.
	The size of the area means that it is expensive to provide education there. A larger number of schools, including many village first schools, is needed because of the travel distances involved. Transport costs are high and statutory transport requirements take a significant slice of the budget, even though the county now charges pupils aged over 16 heavily; it costs them £360 to travel to school or college—an issue I have raised on other occasions.
	However, to deal with such expensive requirements Northumberland receives less money than most other authorities; only four authorities in England have less funding per pupil. In the current year, Northumberland has £3,552 per pupil against the England average of £3,888. Of course, some areas are well above that average, but in Northumberland the costs and pressures are high. On the other side of the border, funding is hugely better in Scotland, which is particularly apparent to my constituents given where they live.
	An added problem—not on the same scale but worrying none the less—arises from the Government's plans, announced earlier this year, to take so-called surplus cash from schools. The amount could be as much as £225 million over the whole country, some of which may already have been spent, because nowadays schools need to conserve money in their budgets for repairs and other commitments, or save money one year for a new project in the following year. The policy is based on assumptions that are not well founded and it could be damaging.
	In the 2004 Budget, the Prime Minister—then the Chancellor—said that he would ensure
	"for every constituency in the country that by 2015, every secondary school can be refurbished or rebuilt with world-class technology in every school".—[ Official Report, 17 March 2004; Vol. 419, c. 335.]
	I sat up with a start when I heard those words. I counted up the schools in my constituency and wondered how the policy would be delivered in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
	I am still asking how that promise will apply in my constituency, where as well as three high schools we have many old first and middle schools that require refurbishment or rebuilding. Some of our schools date from the 1870s, although they are among the better built ones and when refurbished some of them are very good. Many of the schools were built just after the Education Act 1944. Some date from the 1950s and a lot from the 1960s—they are generally the worst, as some were deliberately built with only a 25-year life span and have been patched together since.
	The then Chancellor made his promise about secondary schools, although for many purposes middle schools count as secondary schools, too. However, I shall concentrate on two high schools. Coquet school in Amble is the most recently built of our high schools and the only one that was built for the age group it serves—the three-tier system to which I shall refer in more detail. Although the school has some problems, they do not compare with those at the other high schools in my constituency, at Berwick and Alnwick.
	Most of the buildings at Berwick community high school are old and outdated, although some are more recent. They were built for a style of teaching that is no longer practised. The teaching approach was very different 50 years ago and was based on children sitting in rows, facing the front. The school had serious, unexpected problems with its boiler, which is exactly why schools need reserves in their budget. The buildings are not compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and some of them cannot be made so.
	The state of the buildings is shown in sharp relief when we look just a few miles away to Duns and Eyemouth where £50 million to £75 million has been spent on new schools. No parent from Berwick can send their children to those schools, because they are on the other side of the border which, educationally, is something of an iron curtain. There are very few ways to cross the border educationally, but my constituents look over it and see heavy spending on the schools on the other side that their schools do not share.
	The worst problems for high schools are faced by the Duchess's community high school in Alnwick where the main buildings are old and declining. They have passed the end of their useful life and there is a severe capacity problem. The school was built for 900 pupils, but now has 1,150 on a split site. The dining hall seats only 200 children, but more than 1,000 children have to use it during the lunch break. That means that there are numerous sittings and that pupils have to be pushed out quickly so that the next lot can get in. That is an impossible situation.
	According to the fire certificate, the assembly hall can fit only 300 pupils, but that is not even enough to hold the sixth form for sixth-form assemblies. I am very familiar with the room, because on most of the occasions on which I have been elected to the House the votes have been counted in the high school hall. That happened in my very first election, but even the elections have now moved on. They now take place in the much more spacious, comfortable and attractive leisure centre on the other side of town. However, the school is still condemned to use its very constricted hall. There are only eight science labs for 13 science staff; 13 mobile classrooms in a state of disrepair; and heating problems.
	Then we have the problems of the Bailiffgate site, which is an old building some distance away from the main school. Getting to it involves crossing a road, and it is on four floors with narrow staircases. It is essentially an old domestic property across the road from Alnwick castle, and it does not have sound-proofed music rooms. Despite the quality of the musical effort at the Duchess's high school, that is not always appreciated by people trying to do other work in the same building. It is impossible for the building to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and timetables have to be rewritten to accommodate pupils with mobility problems so that they can stay on the ground floor. We certainly cannot get 21st century best practice for learning environments given the constraints of the buildings.
	It is impossible to make any progress in reducing the carbon cost of the school. It still uses a coal-fired boiler and the buildings are very draughty. Because of the use of a split site, one hour per pupil teaching time is lost every week because of movement between the sites. The school has been made as safe as it can be, but there are still serious issues of safety.
	In 2003, Ofsted drew attention to the difficulties caused by the buildings, particularly the Bailiffgate annexe. In its report, the inspectors gave a list of things that the school should do and one was to
	"Improve the accommodation available by vigorously pursuing the ongoing review of the replacement or refurbishment of the Bailiffgate site."
	The school has vigorously pursued that, but there has still been no progress.
	Ofsted inspected the school again last week, so obviously I do not know what it will say this time. However, I will be surprised if it does not commend the school on the very good progress that it has made. I expect some positive features in the report, but I will be equally surprised if the report does not contain condemnation of the school's buildings and an indication that they are just not fit for purpose. Parents are very exercised by the problem. A recent parents' questionnaire attracted 400 replies and by far and away the main concern expressed was about the buildings.
	As if those problems were not enough, Northumberland is attempting a massive schools reorganisation—from a three-tier to a two-tier system. We have middle schools for nine to 13-year-olds, first schools for five to nine-year-olds, and high schools for 13 to 18-year-olds. The system dates from when the county went comprehensive in stages from the 1970s and it was chosen partly because the most modern buildings that the county had at that time were the secondary modern and technical schools that were built in the aftermath of the Education Act 1944. The reorganisation was largely designed to fit the buildings, but of course those buildings are now very old. The county wants to change things partly to address the sheer number of schools, and the surplus places problem, but the change is controversial and gives rise to a great deal of concern. Educationally, however, the county has another motive. Northumberland is in the top 5 per cent. for key stage 1, but is only average for key stage 2. Pupils transfer in the middle of key stage 2 and again in the middle of key stage 3. That is a system that very few authorities now use.
	Strong arguments are advanced against the change from three to two tiers. The proposal is particular controversial in rural areas where the middle school is the only school within quite a large area. If middle schools cease to take nine to 13-year-olds, children would be completely outside their rural area from the age of 11. The issue applies to the middle schools in Wooler, Rothbury, Belford, and Seahouses, and to other parts of Northumberland outside my constituency, such as Bellingham and Allendale.
	Many parents and teachers in all kinds of areas think that middle schools have positive value. Both my children went through the system, and middle school was a particularly happy time for them. It is a time in which children acquire more responsibility, and they feel that they are taking a responsible role as they get to the top of the school. That has to be balanced against some of the problems arising from transfer at that age, and the short time that pupils then have in which to prepare for GCSE.
	Whatever view one takes of the reorganisation, it will clearly be difficult to achieve unless there is capital for school building. Indeed, we must question whether it can be done at all, even through the phased approach that the county is taking, without substantial extra resources. It will cost money, and it means a lot of school building. Obviously, it is intended that some of the school building will be funded through property deals—by the release of sites. However, the reorganisation should not be shaped by the saleability of sites. That process cannot fund more than a part of what will be required, and it would be distorting if the pattern of reorganisation came to depend on which sites could be sold to release money for new schools to be built.
	Against that background, the county's hope lay in the Building Schools for the Future programme, yet at every stage Northumberland found itself at the back of the queue. It is currently in wave 13 of that programme. Why? That is what I keep asking. The Minister came to a meeting that we held in Woodhorn. There were many interesting people round the table—people from the schools, including pupils, and people from the authority. They asked him a lot of questions, and the questions that we keep asking him is, how does that decision come about? What is wrong? Is the Department making the wrong assessments, or is there something wrong with the bids that Northumberland puts forward?
	If you apply for a job these days, Madam Deputy Speaker, you expect to get some feedback if you do not get the job. I am not suggesting that you are applying for any jobs yourself, but you will know of the process. When people bid for a lottery grant or something like that, best practice now is to give them feedback to tell them in what ways their bid was on the wrong lines, or how they can improve it so that they stand a better chance in future. I do not think that Northumberland has ever had that. I have asked repeatedly for that to be done, so that we can have some understanding of why an authority with such obvious needs is constantly at the back of the queue.
	The result is that Northumberland has had to fund school developments without BSF help. It has committed nearly £28 million to the reorganisation in the Cramlington area, and £26.5 million towards the £54 million programme in Blyth. Incidentally, both of those projects are outside my constituency. All of that heavy capital expenditure is going to the south-east of the county, and not to any part of the area that I have described in my constituency.
	The county has looked into whether academies provide a route. It has followed that route, very controversially, in Ashington and Blyth. In both places, there are huge local arguments about whether the county should be doing that at all. The issue is not just about the principle of academies, but about what the effect will be on schools that the authority has already provided in those areas. However, those are not the problems for tonight. Alnwick, which the county was interested in as a site for an academy, did not meet the criteria, despite having a highly deprived ward directly adjoining the current site of the Duchess's community high school. The academy project went to Ashington and not to Alnwick.
	Given the fact that the academy route has not worked and that Building Schools for the Future has not worked for Northumberland, how is the Government's declared objective and the Prime Minister's declared objective of rebuilding and refurbishing all secondary schools to be realised in my constituency? I ask the Minister to consider some of the things that he might do. The first is to be ready to support Northumberland over the replacement of the Duchess's school in Alnwick. There are many people in Alnwick who say to me, "When is the Schools Minister going to come up and visit Alnwick? He said that he would do so, to come and look at the Duchess's school."
	People have pinned a great deal of hope and responsibility on the Minister, and he should do what he can to assist and support Northumberland in dealing with an urgent problem, the replacement of the Duchess's high school. A lot of negotiation has been going on, particularly with the castle estates, which are the principal landowners in the area, but it remains a difficult process for which significant capital funding will have to be found. I want the Minister to take a personal interest in that, as he has already indicated willingness to do so.
	I pose the question, not out of particular enthusiasm for such a scheme, whether the academy route might be explored for Berwick, bearing in mind a number of special circumstances there. There are deprived wards directly adjoining the location of the school, which are among the 10 per cent. of wards with the highest degree of deprivation. Berwick is also a special case because of its rural character and the area that it serves. It is a special case because there is no parental choice in Berwick, and there is no prospect of parental choice.
	The only parental choice is for those who can afford to send their children to the one private school in the area, Longridge Towers. There is no parental choice within the state sector because the nearest school to which parents are allowed to send their child is in Alnwick, 30 miles away. I have just explained what difficulties are faced there. There is no other school. The schools that are 8 miles and 12 miles away are in Scotland, and the border is an absolute barrier. The Scottish system is different, with transfer at a different age. That, too, makes Berwick a special case.
	There are opportunities to involve further and higher education in Berwick, which are seriously underprovided there. Getting anyone to undertake further education in Berwick is extremely difficult. Huge travel is involved. We have had major arguments about the denial of rail travel for the long, long journey to Newcastle. Edinburgh is nearer, but that is excluded for most purposes by the border. There are real possibilities with Northumbria university and other potential providers. There are even possibilities of co-operation with the private sector in education, which make Berwick a potential special case. It is worth considering whether the academy route is possible for Berwick, despite it not obviously fitting the criteria that have been applied in some other places.
	I should like the Minister to look carefully at slippage in the Building Schools for the Future programme. We know that there has been significant slippage. Indeed, the Department's memorandum to the Education and Skills Committee in its report on sustainable schools stated:
	"There has been significant slippage in BSF projects in waves 1-3, with the majority of projects behind the ideal project timelines."
	The memo went on to identify some of the problems that authorities encountered, many of which are problems that Northumberland knows how to deal with. Northumberland could meet many of the requirements and has already shown its ability to do so and its willingness to commit its own resources to seeing through major projects. I should like the Minister to consider a bid from Northumberland to use what I refer to as slippage money—money that it is not currently possible to spend on some of the planned schemes—to deliver in earlier waves of Building Schools for the Future. Northumberland could act and could deliver.
	I have repeatedly made the request that the Minister talk to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government about the funding formula. The Chancellor says that he is making more money available for education than was previously proposed. Unless something is done, all that will do is ratchet things upwards while preserving the huge inequality between Northumberland and many other parts of the country. I would like the Minister to pass on to his colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, to whom we also make the same points, that the funding formula when applied to education seems to have particularly unjust effects in Northumberland and makes it difficult for the county to meet its obligations on so difficult an issue.
	In 2006, the Prime Minister, then Chancellor, spoke in his Budget statement about raising investment in state schools so that instead of it being £5,000 per pupil, it went up to the £8,000-per-pupil average of the private sector. I do not think that we are anywhere near that figure; I am not sure how the calculations are made, but I am sure that we are short of it. Again, mechanisms will have to be used to overcome the difficulties that I have described if the Prime Minister's declared objective is to be achieved in the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
	I have laid out the problems that arise from Northumberland's character and size, the issues of reorganisation and the age of its schools. I have suggested things that the Minister can do to support the moves to replace the Duchess's community high school in Alnwick and to consider how to get not only a new high school but a much broader range of education provision in Berwick. I have also suggested that slippage in the Building Schools for the Future programme might present an opportunity and that the funding formula should be considered again. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Jim Knight: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on securing this debate and on the excellent way in which he put forward his argument—not quite as excellent as Arsenal's 7-0 victory this evening at the Emirates stadium, but almost as good.
	As the right hon. Gentleman said, I had the pleasure of visiting his constituency 12 months ago. I enjoyed the meeting at Woodhorn and remember hearing from his constituents—those from Alnwick in particular—a rehearsal of the debate around reorganisation, which I observed with interest, but in a slightly detached way given that reorganisation issues are for the local authority, not me, to determine.
	I accord with the right hon. Gentleman's analysis of the two-tier and three-tier systems; there are merits in both. My daughter was educated in the middle-school system and my son largely in the two-tier system, and I am proud of both their educational achievements. Both systems can work well. On my visit, I saw some of the excellent work done in the region of the right hon. Gentleman's constituency and his great concern for the standards of education there and in the north-east in general.
	The Government have made a commitment to creating school buildings fit for 21st century teaching and learning. Given the shoddy state of schools that we inherited, that was more akin to climbing up a mountain than strolling gently up a hill. However, the scale of the challenge means that we can be rightly proud to be delivering on it. We made that bold commitment because we want to provide a genuine opportunity for every child, overcoming attainment gaps and eradicating child poverty, ensuring that outcomes are determined by talent and hard work, and building a fair society and a culture that celebrates success.
	We also made the commitment because we want every pupil to get a personalised education, responsive to their individual needs and supportive of their individual talents. We want to give each child the best possible start in life by giving them the skills that they need to thrive in the modern world, to live happy and successful lives and to fulfil their potential. A good education depends on many things: teachers, parents, standards and discipline. We need to improve all of those—and we are improving them.
	However, well designed buildings, and good facilities where young people can learn and grow, are a vital foundation, so I understand the right hon. Gentleman's frustration as he waits. A well designed school can make a difference in simple but vital ways, as well as providing the right facilities for teaching and learning: imaginatively designed dining halls—hopefully larger than those he described—can encourage healthy eating; wider corridors can cut bullying; and classrooms with natural lighting and fresh air can help pupils' concentration and behaviour. Dark, dingy and decrepit buildings need to be condemned to the past, where they belong.
	Over the past 10 years, we have increased investment year by year, and we are seeing the fruits of that investment in the transformation of school buildings across the country. The shoddy, make-do buildings that we inherited are now, in so many places, a thing of the past. Over the past 10 years, we have built more than 1,100 schools and a further 27,000 new or improved classrooms, as well as 6,600 new or improved laboratories. A total of 2,450 schools have better sports facilities and 2,300 have new or improved kitchens. In the Berwick-upon-Tweed area of Northumberland, about a dozen kitchens and serveries have been refurbished in recent years, and two new science labs have been built, as well as a new assembly hall and a whole new school.
	However, the scale of the task has meant that we have not been able to do everything at once. This is as true for Governments as it is for local authorities. We have made a start. We have struck a balance between ensuring that every school has some investment and tackling the worst school buildings. For instance, there are now no schools that have to rely on outside toilets. In our major strategic programmes, such as "Building Schools for the Future", we have concentrated on those who most need it as determined by levels of deprivation and educational attainment. I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman does not feel that he has had proper feedback, but that was the foundation of the assessment that we made and the basis on which we asked local authorities to make applications for "Building Schools for the Future". If his constituents need an explanation as to why certain areas have been allocated on a certain basis, it is the combination of our priority in respect of levels of deprivation and educational attainment and how local authorities have then responded to those priorities in their applications.

Alan Beith: Why have none of Northumberland's bids been successful, even though it has plenty of instances of deprivation and some instances of lower attainment than should be achieved?

Jim Knight: The other piece of the jigsaw that I should mention is that there needs to be sufficient scale to construct a cost-effective procurement model. Without knowing the exact detail of the situation in Northumberland, it may be that it could do it in two waves rather than one. The procurement model would have to be got right. Some of the larger authorities can do it in several stages and some of their waves have been split accordingly, with some earlier and some later.
	We are now moving ahead. Over the next 15 years or so, we aim to rebuild or refurbish all secondary schools and at least half of all primary schools. Earlier this month, I announced £21.9 billion of capital investment allocations to local authorities to raise standards with state-of-the-art arts, sports and information and communications technology facilities. Our capital investment will mean that by the end of this latest spending period, there will have been a sevenfold increase in investment in real terms since 1997. We will shortly make a revenue allocation announcement.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about the clawback of balances. We are consulting on that, and no decision has been made to do it. The consultation closes this Friday, and I will look to quickly make decisions and announcements, certainly in respect of some aspects. People have raised concerns particularly about the retrospective nature of some of the proposals that we consulted on, and I would like to provide some certainty on that as quickly as I possibly can, because I know that it is causing concern to schools throughout the country. I have some sympathy in respect of revenue, which is not really the subject of this debate, because I represent a Dorset constituency which also does not have one of the best-funded authorities in the country. Although we will not be able to put everything right in one fell swoop, I hope that we will be able to make some progress when we make the revenue announcement.
	As part of our capital funding, we are kick-starting the primary capital programme to rebuild or refurbish half the primary schools in England, with £1.9 billion over the next three years, and we are putting another £9.3 billion into "Building Schools for the Future", including academies, to revamp secondary schools. By 2011, 200 new, rebuilt or revamped secondary schools will be opening every year. We are continuing to strike a balance to make substantial funding available for councils not yet in the "Building Schools for the Future" programme, such as Northumberland, for special educational needs pupils and for 14 to 19 diplomas, providing more money for school kitchens, and with £3 billion devolved straight to schools and over £4.5 billion devolved to councils.
	We will continue to provide funding direct to every school to spend on buildings and ICT as they see fit. Schools that have not yet been modernised will receive a higher rate, with modernised schools receiving a standard rate, which means that the Berwick high school in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency will receive funding at the higher rate. I am advised that it will get £90,000 and that the Duchess's community school that he talked about will receive £126,000.
	How the funding devolved to local authorities is invested is for each local authority to determine, not for us sitting in Whitehall. We have given local authorities centre stage with new powers and duties so that they can be the strategic leaders of education in their area and the champions of parents and pupils because they know best what is most needed in their regions and who can best deliver that service. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is continuing to lobby his friends at county hall. We will look to local authorities to focus on the key priorities, to raise standards in the classroom and to ensure that all children have the opportunity to reach their full potential, because that is what most concerns parents.
	Northumberland will receive its share of funding, with £65 million allocated for capital over the three-year period, including more than £8 million for the primary capital programme. That comes on top of the £41 million that Northumberland received in the last spending review period. It is worth noting the 50 per cent. increase in funding that the county has been allocated over the spending period. In 2010-11 alone, Northumberland will receive £27 million, which compares to just over £3 million that it received in 1996-97. How all that money is invested is a matter of local decision making to support both local and national priorities. As I have said before, even with the amount of money in question, sometimes difficult choices will still have to be made.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about Berwick and the potential for the high school to become an academy. At the moment it does not technically meet the criteria for consideration as an academy, as he said. However, given the rural nature of its catchment area, its isolation from other schools, and the points he has raised, if a scheme is put forward with a sponsor and so on, I will look as sympathetically as I can within the constraints I am under to see whether we can extend support to it.
	The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned Alnwick. I am advised that the council remains committed to delivering a solution to organisational and building issues in the town. Perhaps there is a combination of capital receipts that the council can realise in the medium term that it can then invest in resolving some of the issues. I will take an interest in the matter—the right hon. Gentleman consistently raises it with me. I still intend to visit Northumberland again during the next few months. I have not decided on the final programme because all sorts of people want me to visit all sorts of things, but I will not forget that I made a commitment to visit the Duchess's school, and if I possibly can, I will do so when I am in the area.
	We already have some 72 local authorities in waves 1 to 6 of BSF, which were prioritised on educational and social need. Northumberland local authority is currently prioritised in the later waves of BSF, as we have heard.
	We have already announced that all authorities with projects in wave 7 onwards will be given the opportunity to revise their expression of interest in inclusion in the programme. That may include the way in which they group their schools. Earlier, I talked about the waves and whether it is possible for regrouping to be done in four or five waves that would deal more acutely with the sorts of things that have been described. We aim shortly to consult on the process and on proposals for the management of the later stages of the programme. That will be informed by the lessons learned from the early waves to ensure that the programme delivers to plan, avoiding the sort of slippage that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and benefits all authorities. It will come as no surprise that the key criterion that emerges from the later waves is authorities' readiness to deliver.
	With the right vision and plan, authorities can put themselves in a good position to enter the programme from 2011 when we aim to launch wave 7. I would certainly encourage all authorities to do so and encourage the right hon. Gentleman to continue his discussion with Northumberland. I do not doubt that Northumberland can make a strong case. Indeed, I am advised that it is keen to re-present its case on Building Schools for the Future.
	I take the opportunity to put it on the record that the mischievous reporting 10 days ago in  The Sunday Telegraph and the  News of the World that the review is a prelude to axing BSF is false. Indeed, I hope that the process will allow us quickly to allocate any future slippage to new areas. However, we naturally anticipate that if local authorities, contractors and the Government learn from our experience, any slippage will be minimised if not negligible.
	We have already refurbished thousands of schools throughout the country, but that is only a start. In the next 15 years, we are committed to going even further to ensure that our children and young people have the best possible learning environment, with inspiring new buildings and integrated technology instead of the cramped classrooms, peeling paint and outside loos that they had to suffer for decades under the Conservative Government. That is good news for teachers, parents and communities throughout the country, including those in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Ten o'clock.